Pentagon Resources celebrates a decade in business

Poised for further growth, Pentagon Resources, a global ferro alloys, metals and minerals distribution supplier and other primary raw material distribution company, recently celebrated 10 years in business.

Pentagon Resources specialise in supplying foundries, steel mills, electroplaters, lead processors and production plants as well as battery manufacturers and galvanisers and various mining industries with raw materials sourced from mines, smelters and other production facilities in Southern Africa and abroad. They supply their products into both the Southern African market as well those overseas.

Established in November 2014, the company has recently celebrated a decade in business and has been able to increase its footprint by consistently offering a product and service offering that has been welcomed by industry as both reliable and professional.

“The last five years have been transformative for us. Obviously, we have had the Covid pandemic to contend with, although ironically enough these were some of our best years. Our strategy at the time paid off for us and we were able to take advantage of that. That has allowed us to grow our business both locally and in international markets,” said Joshua van Flymen, founder and Trading Director of Pentagon Resources.

“During that time, we also lost one of our key suppliers when they shut down – this set us back a fair bit – but this forced us to get out and into new markets and we went into Zimbabwe, Brazil, India and all over the world visiting mines and smelters in the endeavour to source product for our clients so that we could remain a go-to supplier for them. The experience has taught us a lot along the way and we have definitely grown from it.”

“Firstly, from this whole experience of losing a key local supplier we were able to source product for the local market at competitive prices from elsewhere but secondly it also gave us the opportunity to compete internationally as a supplier in different markets. Here we have expanded into the UK market as well as into the European market.”

Part of the growth strategy has seen the birth of Pentagon Minerals where ore and other products are procured and beneficiated into various products including chromite ore. Pentagon will also procure and distribute anthracite, chemical grade chromite sand, chromite, chromite ore, foundry grade chromite sand, manganese ore, metallurgical coal and refractory grade chromite sand. Other products include inoculants and recarburisers as well as other industry related products and equipment.

Pentagon Resources now distribute product into France, Italy and Germany from their Rotterdam distribution hub and have established a satellite office in London, United Kingdom.

Specialised charge packs
“From a recycling perspective, we had noticed that a lot of our customers were using very high value metals – nickel-based, chrome-based, moly-based and niobium-based metals – and we saw that there was an opportunity to beneficiate this waste material. This led to us establishing a specialised metals side of the business where we will source and process these materials and supply that to our customers.”

“We call these our specialised charge packs. So, if for example a foundry needs a makeup of 20% moly, 20% nickel and 50% chrome we will take a bale or a pallet and make that up for them and supply it to them. These charge packs weigh between 250kg and 350kg – though we can also provide smaller versions for smaller furnaces – and then all they have to do is drop this charge pack into their furnace. These charge packs consist of only high value materials and we are not what you would call a scrap yard. At this stage the supply of these charge packs is all local. We focus strongly on our quality control in this area for obvious reasons.”

“We have only been running this service for about eight months now but we are already producing about 30 to 40 tons a month of these charge packs for our clients. We have always had the philosophy that we want to support the local market in whatever way we can and in line with this belief we are keen on creating jobs – it’s another way we can contribute to the industry as a whole and further beneficiate waste material.”

New premises
“We moved out of our Wadeville premises and into our new Jet Park facility about two years ago. Currently we have about 2 000m2 but are now looking to expand this – somewhere in the region of 5 000m2 is what we will need.”

“In the last five years we have been able to double our number of employees too and we now have around 30 people working for us. We are always looking at ways in which we can grow the business and if the right opportunity comes our way, then we will definitely look at it.”

“We want to bridge the gap of raw material supply from the mine to the customer and there is no such thing as an order too small in our business – you are buying a product and service from us and our goal is to provide the industry with top-quality products, and that starts with sourcing them effectively.”

“We still aim to be recognised as the ‘Amazon’ of metal and alloy supply in South Africa. Just as Jeff Bezos and his team have perfected nearly every aspect of the supply chain – from warehousing and inventory management to delivery times and pricing – this is the standard we’re always striving for.”

“If someone phones us up at 13:00 today and they need 20 tons of different alloys and metals, we will get that to them that day if they are within a certain vicinity,” concluded van Flymen.

For further details contact Pentagon Resources on TEL: 011 028 4225 or visit www.pentagonresources.co.za